


are you lost?

by Princex_N



Series: you may not rest now, there are monsters nearby [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Conversations, Disorganized Speech, First Meetings, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Odd Friendships, POV Outsider, Paranoia, Pre-Canon, Schizo Spectrum Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 03:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14369868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Keith's new home dirty and small, more of a storage shack than a house, but he insists that it's more than enough, that he's alright, that he doesn't need any help.He looks like an absolute mess, glancing out the window and over her shoulder like he's expecting something awful to show up at any second and attack him. She doesn't believe his reassurances for a second.Or, Keith's life in the desert, and his subsequent disappearance, as experienced by the people who knew him.





	are you lost?

1\. The Desert Witch

When he first moves into the old abandoned shack, she is the first to visit him. 

She knows when he arrives the same way she always knows what is going on in this desert. It is her home, and it is more familiar to her than any other place on this planet. The spirits and the cards whisper of his arrival, and she goes to greet him, the way she has heard a good neighbor should. 

Still, he is younger than she anticipates. There is only a small number of people who are willing to move into the desert, many of them are older, like her, but he is a teenager. It digs at her to know that there is a teenager so young all on his own in this place. It is her home, but even she is aware of the harshness of its reality. He regards her and her small gift with suspicion and distrust that she knows very well, so she doesn't push. Only leaves her name, the gift, and an open invitation to drop by if he ever needs help. 

It's a long time before she encounters him again. 

When he knocks on her door, eyes wild and breath shallow, his hands wrapped tight around the pendant around his neck (the one she had given him. Smokey quartz, for protection), she does not hesitate to let him in. 

He is insistent that nothing is wrong, but she doesn't believe him for a moment. She refrains from pushing, because she doesn't want to drive him away, into the desert and the waiting arms of whatever he is so terrified of, but she knows better than to believe those lies. 

Not when she has told so many of them herself. 

She lets him stay. Brings him snacks and tea, and doesn't miss how he touches neither. When it becomes clear he's not leaving, but also isn't expecting anything else from her, she goes on with her day, aware of but not opposed to the eyes on her as she shuffles her deck, cleans her altar, charges her crystals, and speaks to the spirits. There is an odd thrum of energy out there in the sand that emerged the same day as he did, and her pendulums and candles have been frantic and lively ever since. 

He asks the occasional question, and she answers him honestly. A few hours pass in this manner before he leaves, seeming much calmer than before. 

Later that week, he begins bringing quartz and turquoise to her door. 

"I find them when I'm out," he explains to her, when she eventually asks. "They mean something to you. So I bring them here." 

Sometimes he comes inside, sometimes he doesn't. He never accepts any food or drink from her, but he will take stones or wards if he's allowed to watch as she makes them. He makes her think of the fae, and she wonders more than once if he is, perhaps, not as human as he seems. 

Ultimately, it doesn't matter to her. 

It isn't as if  _she_ has the room to speak. 

Everything comes to a head the day of the new moon. There has been something building, something coming, and the awareness of it sends prickles under her skin. The cards she pulls when she asks about Keith do nothing to settle this feeling. 

So, she walks to his house, her steps driven by anxiety and anticipation, and he  _appears_ to be alright, but there is a tense anticipation coiled in his muscles as well. 

"Be careful," she tells him, pressing a spell jar and an agate stone into his hands. "Accept the help that is offered to you, and be  _safe_." She waits until he nods his acquiescence to continue. "You will find what you are looking for, but you  _must_ be ready to accept the responsibility that comes with it." 

He seems confused, but that's okay. He doesn't need to understand it all right now, as long as he remembers when it becomes important. She only hopes that what little she could offer him will be enough. He is older now than he was when he first came to this desert, but is still so young. She fears her protection may not be enough. Not for what the future has in store for him. 

It is the last time in a very long time that she sees him, but every day she prays for his safety and future return. 

She can only hope that it is enough. 

* * *

2\. Lance's Older Sister

The only reason that Riza even meets him is because her boss hates her and gave her the night shift on Tuesdays, as if he doesn't know that she has an 8AM on Wednesdays. 

She's trying to stay awake at her register, because in reality the only people who do their grocery shopping at two in the morning are the types to use the self-checkout, when he walks in and nearly topples over the display shelf of plants by the front doors. 

"Careful there," she calls out, customer service voice firmly in place, but internally groaning at the prospect of having to deal with yet another wasted party boy in the middle of the night. 

He doesn't respond to her, which is typical. Customers are often like that, especially so early in the morning. 

She tracks his movements throughout the store, because she wants to make sure that he doesn't break or steal anything. Plus, depending on what kind of drunk he is, it could be a fun story to bring home to Chelsea. Fortunately for her (unfortunately for Chelsea), he doesn't get up to much. He moves through the aisles like a skittish cat, occasionally shooting distrustful glances over his shoulder or up towards the ceiling. She doesn't know what (or who) he's looking for, but to each his own she supposes. 

To her surprise, he comes to her register instead of the self-checkout. He stacks and rearranges his groceries (bottles of water, fruit cups, ramen) in a careful -but seemingly random- order, and she waits for him to be done before she triggers the belt into moving (because, after all, it's not like there's a  _line_ ). 

"Find everything okay?" she asks, scanning items and actually finding herself wanting a little bit of conversation to keep her awake. Her boss doesn't let cashiers have coffee or any kind of drunk when at the register. Apparently, it's "unprofessional". 

But so is falling asleep at the register. 

The kid takes a moment to grasp that she's actually talking to him. Up close, he actually looks pretty young. Probably only a little bit older than Lance. 

"Fine," he says. "Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine." His words come out in a jumbled mess, mashed together with the urgency that he speaks them with. He seems upset at the repetitions of his words, but can't seem to stop them. 

Maybe he isn't drunk after all. 

"Well that's good," she says, slipping a couple of coupons into the register, because up close she can see how greasy his hair is and the way sand is caked under his nails and in the creases of his jacket. He looks like he could stand to save a couple of bucks on water. "Do you often come grocery shopping in the middle of the night?" 

His body goes rigid, and he stares at her suspiciously. Riza keeps her face placid and friendly as she finishes ringing him up and tells him his total. 

He looks at her a while longer, and then starts wrestling crumpled bills out of his wallet. "I don't, don't like the crowds. Crowds. Crowds," he mumbles finally, ducking his head to hide his eyes behind his bangs as he shoves the money into her hands. 

She can feel him shaking. 

"Me too," she says, looking at the register instead of at him, because if she looks at him for too long she might be overwhelmed by the urge to bundle him up and take him home to feed him (god, she's turning into her mother). "I like working this late. Less lines to deal with. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Here's your change and your receipt!" 

"Thank, thank you. Thanks." He grabs the coins and thin paper, and crams them into his bag of groceries and walks off without another word. 

Riza worries that she might have scared him off for good. 

But the next weeks, 2AM on the dot, he's there again, and the Thursday after that, and the weeks after that as well. 

She learns that his name is Keith (just like the Keith that Lance is always talking about, from the Garrison). He lives out in the desert, and he's looking for something, though he never says what. 

Some days are worse than others, but she thinks that he's settling a little. He looks a little more solid, a little less haunted as he walks through the aisles. She actually finds herself looking forward to seeing him each week, the only customer that's ever caught her attention for more than a few seconds. 

And then Lance disappears, and it's a while before she goes back to work. 

When she returns, it's only to find that Keith is gone as well. 

She tries to ask around about him, but apparently only very few people knew him. None of them can tell her where he might have gone. It hurts her heart, it's too similar, too close. Like she's lost two little brothers instead of just the one.

She wonders where they've gone, and wonders if maybe, wherever they went, they went together. She almost hopes that this is the case. Then they could protect each other. Get each other home safely.

Wherever they are, she prays to god that they are safe. 

* * *

3\. Pidge's Mother

After Kerberos, everything is a mess. It's like her life has been split into two parts. Before the Kerberos mission, and after it. 

She does her best to check in on Keith, but there's only so much that she can do, especially when she's caught between her own grief and Katie. 

Colleen doesn't know Keith well. She's heard more stories about him than encountered the young man himself. Shiro talked about him on the nights he dropped in for dinner, and Matt talked about him sometimes as well, second-hand stories from Shiro or his own first-hand accounts from the Garrison. 

He sounds like a good kid. It breaks her heart to think of him, entirely alone now that Shiro is gone, but he rebuffs every offer she extends, and it isn't as if she can  _force_ him to accept anything from her. 

She doubts that's what he needs right now, anyway. 

But she hears from Katie when he gets kicked out of the Garrison and seemingly disappears into the desert. It takes a bit of asking around, until finally a dark skinned older woman with wild white hair is able to give her the location of Keith's new home. 

It's dirty and small, more of a storage shack than a house, but he insists that it's more than enough, that he's alright, that he doesn't need any help. 

He looks like an absolute mess, glancing out the window and over her shoulder like he's expecting something awful to show up at any second and attack him. She doesn't believe his reassurances for a second, but when she mentions him staying at her house instead, he looks so viscerally panicked that she backs off immediately and can't bring herself to further push the issue. 

She settles for bringing him meals every once in a while. It helps, especially when Katie finally goes through with her plan to infiltrate the Garrison. Colleen likes taking care of people, and now that her family is entirely out of reach, she'll have to make do. 

And then Katie is among the group of students that disappear during a drill, and nobody will give her answers, and no one knows where they've gone or what's happened to them. It's like Kerberos all over again, she feels like she's falling apart. She forces herself out to the desert, caught between just needing something to do and wondering if Keith had managed to see anything from his house. The desert is enormous, but you can see for  _miles_ out there. Surely he must have seen  _something_. 

But his house is empty, and the woman setting stones on his windowsill and burning sage in his doorway tells her that Keith has  _been_ gone. 

Vanished the same day that Katie did. 

It hardens her resolve. Colleen knows that something is wrong, and she's going to find out what it is. It doesn't matter if she has to sift through the Garrison brick by brick, she is going to find the truth, and she  _will_ bring her children home. 

Every single one of them. 

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of doubt that this is what anyone was thinking of when they thought about wanting more for this series, but! It may or may not contribute to possible future fics, so enjoy it anyway! There are probably definitely more on the way, as long as college doesn't get in the way too badly!


End file.
